SCHC 451 H02 25984

EngLit, HistoryCiv, Humanities, AIU

Notes:

Nations often have culture heroes from a pseudo-medieval past. The Celts of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany esteemed King Arthur, “quondam rex et futurus.” Americans admire Luke Skywalker, a “knight” from “a long time ago.” The French revere the fictional Roland more than the historical Charlemagne. Tolkien’s characters from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are transatlantic culture heroes of comparable preeminence. For many they are literary heroes of our time. Surveys of “favorite books” in Britain and the US usually include LOTR alongside novels assigned in school. But no one ever assigned LOTR in a classroom. It’s 1,000 pages of epic fantasy full of dense language, mythic histories and inscrutable characters with ethnic identities of granular verisimilitude. Tolkien clearly spent decades living in his head, imagining the world of Middle Earth. His construct was inevitably suffused with his deeply held views of human nature. The subject of this course will be the grand themes suffusing Tolkien’s complex legendarium.What motivated Tolkien to write his epic? Though born in South Africa, Tolkien was thoroughly English; he appreciated social status, British patriotism and the landscape of his Mercian homeland. Tolkien’s father died when he was three, his mother when he was twelve. He knew transience and loss, inevitability and resolve. Raised by a priest, he escaped into fantasy fiction. He went to Oxford to study archaic languages, first Classics, then medieval English. He learned historical linguistics, exploring the variety and long-term evolution of ancient vocabulary. He even invented alphabets and languages, calling his talent “a secret vice.” He had the peculiar British gift for composing doggerel verse and for painting in watercolor. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. He understood faith, salvation and providence. A late Victorian, Tolkien promoted Victorian morality, aloofness and sexism. He came of age in the Great War and experienced the loss of his closest friends. In this conflict he came to understand the nature of power in all its forms, but especially political power. It terrified and attracted him, a simple man who only wished to live quietly as British gentry. (Bilbo Baggins the squire of Hobbiton was his alter ego.) The people who should have power, Tolkien concluded, are those who don’t want it.In this course we will read The Hobbit and LOTR alongside some relevant minor works, especially “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon,” “Leaf by Niggle,” “On Fairy Stories,” Father Christmas Letters, and “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” You’ll appreciate that the reading load is VERY heavy. Students in this course will be expected to have read The Hobbit and LOTR in advance, i.e., before the first class meeting. Our first meeting will include a pre-exam on the course content. We will re-read the content as we advance through the novels. NOTE: You must have the details in your head, and you will refresh your memory upon a second reading.GRADING: 1. participation (incl. one 15-minute presentation) = 20%; 2. daily quizzes = 10%; 3. take-home mid-term exam = 20%; 4. final research paper (10 pages minimum) = 50%.